Raised in a small French town by his single mother, a hairdresser named Jeanine, 10-year-old Martin is sent to live with Victor, his tyrannical father. Victor has a family of his own: a wife, Lucie, and three sons, François, Frédéric, and Benjamin. Twelve years later, Martin remains scarred by his childhood. Having fled his father’s home, he arrives in Paris and finds refuge with his half-brother Benjamin, now an actor, and Benjamin’s violinist roommate, Alice. After achieving success as a model, Martin puts the moves on Alice, whose initial wariness blossoms into genuine love. But the sudden prospect of fatherhood reawakens Martin’s repressed guilt about the death of his father, and Alice must fight to preserve his sanity. –Inbaseline
A critic with the Cahiers du Cinéma in the 60s, he made his directing debut with Paulina s’en va, his first feature, shown at the Fortnight in 1969. He returned to the Fortnight in 1975 with Souvenirs d’en France. Reputed for his work with actors, he has directed the likes of Isabelle Adjani, Catherine Deneuve, Jeanne Moreau, Juliette Binoche, Isabelle Huppert, Gérard Depardieu, Michel Blanc, Daniel Auteuil… He won several awards at Venice and Cannes and received three Césars in 1995 for Les roseaux sauvages. –Quinzaine des Réalisateurs